Kickass dumb war heros

Kickass, the doorstop dog, says the keeper is a bit put off by the Ken Burns technique of featuring guys who find themselves in combat because they thought it through and decided they had to go to war for deep philosophic and patriotic reasons. In the keeper’s case, he went to war to get the hell away from the stigma of losing his driver’s license after too many beers at a classmate’s house party, and he then volunteered for Korea to get out of Alabama, which tells you something about Alabama and the keeper’s ability to think things through.

Last night’s Burns episode showed truck drivers as heroes and reminded the keeper of the time he ran down a mined Korean hill that was under artillery fire to stop oncoming traffic that would have been blocked by a burning truck load of full five-gallon gas cans that exploded up into the air like an odd and endless metal fireworks display. The platoon commander told others he was going to put the keeper in for a medal, but he never did. Maybe he couldn’t figure out how to word it: “Ignoring incoming fire and needing exercise, Corporal Stokes ran down a hill and stopped trucks.” It has no war hero ring to it!

Kickass says when dogs get into a fight it usually means the dogs really want to fight with each other. When young men like the keeper get into a fight/war it is usually because they are too dumb to stay out of it.